Bush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway

Human Events ^ | June 12, 2006 | Jerome Corsi

[conservativecorner]

Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.

Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.

As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year. Various U.S. government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have been working behind the scenes to create the NAFTA Super Highway, despite the lack of comment on the plan by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming “North American Union” that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality.

Just examine the following websites to get a feel for the magnitude of NAFTA Super Highway planning that has been going on without any new congressional legislation directly authorizing the construction of the planned international corridor through the center of the country.

NASCO, the North America SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., is a “non-profit organization dedicated to developing the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America.” Where does that sentence say anything about the USA? Still, NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan the NAFTA Super Highway as a 10-lane limited-access road (five lanes in each direction) plus passenger and freight rail lines running alongside pipelines laid for oil and natural gas. One glance at the map of the NAFTA Super Highway on the front page of the NASCO website will make clear that the design is to connect Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. into one transportation system.

Kansas City SmartPort Inc. is an “investor based organization supported by the public and private sector” to create the key hub on the NAFTA Super Highway. At the Kansas City SmartPort, the containers from the Far East can be transferred to trucks going east and west, dramatically reducing the ground transportation time dropping the containers off in Los Angeles or Long Beach involves for most of the country. A brochure on the SmartPort website describes the plan in glowing terms: “For those who live in Kansas City, the idea of receiving containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico may sound unlikely, but later this month that seemingly far-fetched notion will become a reality.”

The U.S. government has housed within the Department of Commerce (DOC) an “SPP office” that is dedicated to organizing the many working groups laboring within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to create the regulatory reality for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005. According to the DOC website, a U.S.-Mexico Joint Working Committee on Transportation Planning has finalized a plan such that “(m)ethods for detecting bottlenecks on the U.S.-Mexico border will be developed and low cost/high impact projects identified in bottleneck studies will be constructed or implemented.” The report notes that new SENTRI travel lanes on the Mexican border will be constructed this year. The border at Laredo should be reduced to an electronic speed bump for the Mexican trucks containing goods from the Far East to enter the U.S. on their way to the Kansas City SmartPort.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is overseeing the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as the first leg of the NAFTA Super Highway. A 4,000-page environmental impact statement has already been completed and public hearings are scheduled for five weeks, beginning next month, in July 2006. The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain. As a consequence, the TTC will be privately operated, leased to the Cintra consortium to be operated as a toll-road. The details of the NAFTA Super Highway are hidden in plan view. Still, Bush has not given speeches to bring the NAFTA Super Highway plans to the full attention of the American public. Missing in the move toward creating a North American Union is the robust public debate that preceded the decision to form the European Union. All this may be for calculated political reasons on the part of the Bush Administration.

A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.

[hedgetrimmer]

It's no threat to sovereignty.

This lie worked well on the British people, I'm told.

[Dog Gone]

You can compare the unemployment figures for yourself. That pretty much takes care of the "export of jobs" argument.

And I don't care about the CFR. It's a frickin' think tank. They propose some good stuff and some bad stuff. The people who obsess about it, believing it's some shadow government imposing its will on us need to chill out. Who cares what documents they produce?

I'm far more worried about bills enacted in Congress. At least they're real.

[Dog Gone]

You're melodramatic, if nothing else.

[nicmarlo]

Okay. Then what about the bill that Katherine Harris has sponsored? And another sponsored by Senator Lugar? Then there's yet another, sponsored by the Swimmer. You don't think there's something inherently odd that our elected officials are working to strategize and fund enforcement of Mexico's border, as well as the perimeter borders of the entity called "North America", which, in fact, is composed of three sovereign countries, namely, Canada, the U.S., and Mexico? Yet these very individuals and elected American officials neglect to enforce the perimeter of the sovereign country, the United States of America, the country they have a sworn duty to Constitutionally protect?

H.R.2672 North American Cooperative Security Act (Introduced in House by Katherine Harris)

SEC. 5. IMPROVING THE SECURITY OF MEXICO'S SOUTHERN BORDER.

The Senate version has the same language, accessible here:

S.853 North American Cooperative Security Act (Introduced in Senate by Senator Lugar)

A bill to direct the Secretary of State to establish a program to bolster the mutual security and safety of the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and for other purposes.

Sponsor: Sen Lugar, Richard G. [IN] (introduced 4/20/2005) Cosponsors (6); Committees: Senate Foreign Relations
Latest Major Action: 4/20/2005 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

SEC. 5. IMPROVING THE SECURITY OF MEXICO'S SOUTHERN BORDER.

And this law, sponsored by the Swimmer:

S.1618

Enhanced Border Security Act of 2001 (Introduced in Senator Kennedy)

became Public Law 107-173 on 5/14/2002

SEC. 4. PERIMETER NATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAM.

(a) STUDY OF PERIMETER NATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAM- The Secretary of State and the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, in consultation with the Director of the Office of Homeland Security and the Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, shall jointly conduct a study of the costs, procedures, and implementation alternatives of a Perimeter National Security Program, which shall involve a review of, at least the following:

(1) NORTH AMERICAN NATIONAL SECURITY COOPERATIVE- The feasibility of establishing a cooperative task force of the appropriate representatives of Canada, Mexico, and the United States to establish, implement, and monitor an intercountry system to evaluate and determine the admission of foreign nationals based on national security concerns, including the monitoring of the entry and exit of foreign nationals from such countries.

[Rockitz]

From a recent newsletter by Jim Shepherd:

"One thing I will say about the job data reporting lately is that it has adapted somewhat to the reality of the situation. Previously, it was often mentioned that the economy needed to produce around 200,000 jobs per month just to offset the effect of new entrants into the job market. Now, with job growth averaging at or below that level, month after month, the reporters now exclaim that a “gain of 211,000 (as per the data for the month of March released last Friday) is terrific!” Not only that, they fail to draw any distinction between the jobs that used to be created in this country and the kinds of jobs that are being created now. In March, for example, almost all the jobs were related to the service sector. These jobs simply do not pay as much as the manufacturing jobs that have been lost by the millions over the last few years, as this economy has dramatically changed in nature from a producer of goods that others wanted, to consumers of things made elsewhere that we really cannot afford....

[references to charts I can't post]

....the illusion of job growth belies the reality of what is actually happening. It sounds impressive to say that in the month of March, more than two hundred thousand new jobs were created. If you were to state it correctly, however, you would have to also say that while 211,000 new non-farm payroll jobs were created in March, these were almost exclusively lower paying service sector jobs. Furthermore, the manufacturing sector actually lost thousands of jobs once again in March, as the meltdown in the manufacturing sector continued. As well, you would properly have to point out that, although the economy created just over 200,000 jobs in March, it needs to create that many each month just to break even. Did you hear any of these things in the latest release? I doubt it. Will you hear these things in the next release? Don’t hold your breath."

I'd say that pretty much sinks your "export of jobs" argument.

[nicmarlo]

I've read similar information elsewhere, but didn't feel like getting into yet another argument.

There is a problem, Houston, but some folks won't wake up and smell the coffee.

[nicmarlo]

Oh, BTW, the information you posted, Rockitz, the U.S. situation is very similar to Mexico's. There has been an increase in jobs, but not an increase in wages. And they are also losing jobs to China, which has become "cheaper" labor than Mexico.

[Dog Gone]

Weird. Unemployment is down, the standard of living is increasing, as is per capita income, yet a newsletter portrays something equivalent to the 1930's breadline.

Maybe I need to write one of those, because there's probably money to be made.

What the hell is wrong with the service sector? Do you think that is only hotel maids, or does it include doctors, lawyers, and architects?

We lose jobs all the time. That damn Eli Whitney put all kinds of cottonpickers out of a job with his invention. The fact that a robot can put on a lugnut more reliably and cheaplt than a $50/hour worker in Detroit isn't a shock.

The question is whether you have a workforce that can adapt to new conditions. The answer is obviously yes.

The only jobs that matter in this economy are NOT manufacturing jobs, just like they're no longer farming jobs.

If those jobs are so precious to America, outlaw tractors and robot manufacturing.

[Dog Gone]

Protecting North American security makes each country safer. Having Canada, for example, be part of our NMD system benefits us both.

It's not an either/or situation. We need to protect our own borders at the border and we need to jointly protect North America.

I don't know why that's controversial. Let's work on both.

[nicmarlo]

American citizens should not be paying for Mexico's southern border.

What American citizens would like, however, is securing America's borders, north and south. This is not being done.

[Dog Gone]

I don't know how much, if any, we're paying to help Mexico secure its southern border. But if it's secure (which it obviously isn't yet) that would eliminate Central Americans from crossing into our border.

That's a much shorter and defensible border than our huge one with Mexico. Why wouldn't it be in our interest to stop the flow even further south?

[nicmarlo]

Because it's really in America's interest to secure AMERICA's border.

[Dog Gone]

Because it's really in America's interest to secure AMERICA's border.

Then you're a defensive mindset, not a proactive one.

We shouldn't take it to the terrorists on their territory, we should set up anti-aircraft missiles around Manhattan.

No use getting to the source and stopping them before they get here. That wouldn't be in America's interest, right?

[nicmarlo]

Sorry, but I'd do a better job protecting my own home than relying on my neighbors to do what I won't do myself.

Same principle applies to borders.

And Mexico's a corrupt government to boot.

BTW, I'm still waiting for you to post some credible sources for me to read from which you've formulated your opinions to refute the implications concering the various documents I previously mentioned.

[Dog Gone]

I already told you. I don't give a crap about documents published by a private group.


They can publish whatever the hell they want, and you're free to panic. Which you obviously have.

I feel no obligation to refute what they're saying any more than I feel the obligation to refute what the Brookings Institute publishes. It just doesn't matter to me.

Don't make me try to refute your boogeymen. I'm not interested.

[nicmarlo]

Which "private" group are you referring to? The White House, SPP.gov, The Union-Tribune, Congress, "the Guanajuato Proposal," endorsed by Presidents Bush and Fox, NASCO, the U.S. Department of State, the Commission for Labor Cooperation, the North American Development Bank (which Condi Rice is a Board Member), the Texas Republican Party, or the CFR, to name just a few? I have posted links to full articles from all the above websites. I've read every article to which I've linked or mentioned. I used those articles to formulate my opinion, in addition to reading those of Corsi's.

What have you read that you could provide me which would refute the massive amount of materials coming out of all the entities above-mentioned that would contradict the implications drawn from ALL of those articles?

[Dog Gone]

I'm referring to the CFR, the favorite boogeyman of the moonbat crowd.

You can post all the stuff from your sources that you like, but that stuff doesn't change a thing.

What matters is what's really happening, not a secret society globalist conspiracy gobbledygook plan. You buy into that crap. Most of us don't.

I don't know what literature you obviously pay good money for that puts the kook spin on every pronouncement made by any organization, private or public, that feeds into your fears, but you're getting your money's worth.

Once again, I'm not interested in refuting your boogeymen. Psychiatrists charge the big bucks for doing that.

Post the proposed text of a bill that's likely to reach a floor vote in Congress (or even provide a link to it) that addresses any of your greatest fears and I'll be happy to weigh in. If you're concerned about it, I probably will be, too.

What I refuse to do is buy into the rest of the paranoia.

[nicmarlo]

Thanks for confirming to me that you are formulating your opinions on........your opinions only and that you haven't read any of the documents to which I just referred coming out of all the GOVERNMENT websites.

[Dog Gone]

Thank you for confirming for me that you can't separate meaningless statements from various inconsequential groups, especially non-governmental ones, and actual policy or law.

(P.S. I actually have read some of them but NONE of them matter. It's a waste of time.)

But you thrive on this stuff, and you can't be convinced otherwise. Whatever makes you happy.

[nicmarlo]

You are relying upon your own opinions to claim that there are no dots to connect. You are relying upon your own views to refute the clear implications, as shown in various government documents and many other credible sources, plans which indicate the intent to formulate a North American Union, to the detriment of America's sovereignty.

I will, accordingly, take your outright dismissal of the above facts which are merely based upon your own personal opinions, with the weight that they then deserve.